"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools" – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Climate Emergency: Greenhouse Gas Levels Surge to Historic Levels

For the Real News, I speak to Dr. Kevin E. Trenberth, a Distinguished Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, about an alarming new report that the average concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere reached 403.3 parts per million in 2016. The earth has not experienced this level of CO2 concentration for millions of years. As Dr. Trenberth explained, when the atmosphere last contained this much CO2, sea levels were several meters higher. Dr. Trenberth also explains that, in his opinion, there is now no hope of us keeping the global temperature increase to less than 1.5C and that remaining within an increase of 2C will be extraordinarily challenging. In other words, our leaders are failing us. We have a global climate emergency on our hands and our leaders are determined to bury their heads in the sand.